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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Ambulance staff suspended over failure to respond to 999 call, he was on a break, women died, he should be sacked

Dear All

The Emergency Services are quite rightly held in high regard by the people of Scotland.

But every now and then a story appears which is truly shocking and distasteful.

An ambulance technician has been suspended after he chose not to attend an emergency call to a heart attack patient in Northern Scotland because he was on a break.

This person should be immediately sacked for what must be gross professional misconduct.

The woman died after suffering cardiac arrest in Tomintoul, Moray.

Failure to respond to a 999 call is never acceptable for a on-duty technician.

Because of the failure to respond to the 999 call on October 16 and paramedics from Grantown-on-Spey were dispatched instead.

The Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) said an investigation was under way.

A spokesman said:

"The ambulance technician on duty in Tomintoul was on a rest break and chose not to respond”.

The spokesman added:

"An ambulance crew was dispatched from Grantown-on-Spey and arrived on scene within 21 minutes, followed by an air ambulance helicopter eight minutes later. Unfortunately, the patient did not survive the cardiac arrest and our thoughts are with her family at this difficult time."

I was on a 54 bus last year when a woman had a heart attack, I tried my best to save her giving CPR till the ambulance came; 21 minutes would be a long time to give CPR in the case of the woman from Tomintoul, Moray. I was doing CPR for about 10 minutes on my knees and couldn't walk for a month afterwards without severe pain but I was willing to try because it was someone's family. And I was the only one willing to step up to the plate.

Minutes really do a difference.

The spokesman added:

"The Scottish Ambulance Service has asked the Health Professions Council to consider the ambulance technician's decision-making and has suspended the individual whilst this consideration takes place."

We demand a lot from the emergency services and as such we should be flexible in attitude but that has to cut both ways, leaving someone to die is never acceptable.

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Absolute nonsense! This poor ambulance technician should never have been asked to respond as the ambulance service adheres to european working time regulations and has undisturbed mealbreaks.There is certainly no difference between this and the fact general practitioners do not attend out of hours nowadays. The fire brigade in London are currently striking on bonfire night so surely this is also morally wrong?!The bottom line is you cannot sack this "scapegoat" for working to the rules of working time regulations. If he makes a clinical error or caused a road accident as he was fatigued would he also have been chastised.This man is a probationer who should not have gone out by himself so people who do not know the full story should not judge this person.